Diablo 4 is all about finding that perfect item. While carefully picking out your skills and paragon points is of course paramount to success, that’s all completely under your control. What really makes the best Diablo 4 builds truly sing are those perfectly rolled item drops. But if you’re scouring the world of Diablo 4 in search of the most powerful items in the RPG game, you might be missing some of the very best gear right under your nose.
If you’re deep into the endgame, you might well have settled into a nice rhythm of farming. Jump into Diablo 4 Helltides when they’re active to grab lots of juicy loot drops, then spend the downtime running through the best Diablo 4 nightmare dungeons for optimal XP gains and a decent helping of gear along the way. Then you just hop to town and offload all the junk to a vendor, clearing out your inventory for the next run.
But wait a moment, because that store has its own stuff for sale, presumably dumped by other passing adventurers – and you know what they say, one person’s trash is another’s treasure. That’s right; while you may well have assumed that vendor items are largely garbage gear outside of the early leveling stages, the in-town shops might actually hold that perfect piece that you’ve been hunting for.
Diablo 4 Twitch streamer Max ‘Wudijo’ R. – who recently battled the game’s hardest boss to the most thrilling Diablo 4 stalemate in history – ran into his dream chest armor while selling spare gear to a vendor. The Knight’s Blame he found is a rare Diablo 4 ancestral item that rolled with a huge base armor stat of 1,400, and also boasts damage reduction, damage reduction from close enemies, and damage reduction from distant enemies. Outstanding.
Given that chest and leg pieces are by far the most potent defensive tools in your kit, this is a huge drop to grab. Wudijo buys it without hesitation, having previously actually lost a similarly powerful item when the shop inventory rolled over on the hour, just before he clicked to purchase it. Not willing to risk it happening again, he snaps the Knight’s Blame up – after all, gold is easy to regain, but a potential best-in-slot item is forever.
A little rerolling and upgrading later, and Wudijo has also got a massive bonus to his total armor as the fourth stat, making it a near-perfect item that he hung onto right up to the Diablo 4 max level cap. So next time you’re dumping dozens of shoes, daggers, and rings out onto a poor vendor’s table, maybe take ten seconds to browse their wares. You might be surprised by what you find.
Blizzard is just about to drop all the juicy Diablo 4 season 1 details, so be sure to keep an eye on our guide to know exactly what to expect. We’ve also outlined how the Diablo 4 battle pass works and what rewards you’ll be able to snag as you level it up.